Post by Hurdy Gurdy Man on Dec 5, 2021 11:29:45 GMT
Hello, good folks of FG. The weekly film discussion thread is back.
The topic under discussion is made clear in the title. Made-for-TV, direct-to-video, streaming, TV series/episodes, documentaries, short films can also be listed.
The topic under discussion is made clear in the title. Made-for-TV, direct-to-video, streaming, TV series/episodes, documentaries, short films can also be listed.
The minimum requirement is that a numerical rating out of 5 or 10 be provided - whichever the poster wishes to choose - and it'll be even more helpful if he/she also writes a few thoughts regarding his/her experience with the feature/documentary/short/TV series' season. This will help in starting discussions, which is one of the main intentions of this thread. I also request all those who reply here to go through the whole thread once and see if you can see some common topic to discuss with other posters.
Last week:
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This one tried hard to be an emotionally wrenching thriller. Joaquin Phoenix's performance was excellent and Vince Vaughn tried to be dramatic, bless his soul. But the story loves too slowly and takes too many unnecessary, out-of-nowhere twists designed solely for the viewer's manipulation.
4/10
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I found the sum of many individual parts of this to be more rewarding then the whole film. The three central characters of William Hurt, Geena Davis and Kathleen Turner are richly written and compelling. I was invested with their personalities and intersecting story lines. However, the film also kept making detours into story lines of other characters, which I found to be annoying and time-wasting. The eccentricities of Hurt's family members was overdone. I feel that this film needed more focus on the main stuff, omitting most of the other characters.
6/10
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I have never liked auto racing. Egregious and irresponsible waste of precious fuel that ultimately benefits no one. This film was a passion project of Steve McQueen who was himself a passionate auto racer. He wanted the film to be more like a documentary on a 24 hour car race and not like a conventional film with plot and characters. John Sturges was the original director but he walked out due to his disagreement with McQueen on precisely this point. Ultimately, the film is exactly like how McQueen wished, so he had his own way. It's a testament to his star power.
Since I don't like the subject of the film in the first place, a plot-less filming of a race was not going to be to my liking anyhow. I do appreciate its planning and technical side, though. For racing enthusiasts - especially of the European style of racing - this would be vintage gold.
4/10
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Between this and Outland, I have come to realize one film about Hyams - he was a very gifted director but his screenwriting abilities were not up to the mark. Just like Outland, here also it's his directorial touch that carries the film and makes it entertaining despite the huge gaping holes in the plot.
I feel that had it been a simple survival thriller, it would have been tighter, more focussed and hence more entertaining. By bringing in the character of the investigative journalist and the whole 70s conspiracy thriller element into it, the momentum of the film tended to falter. Maybe Hyams should have delivered his story to a professional screenwriter. He/she would then have taken the potentially exciting but disparate elements that Hyams had in mind and bound and streamlined them into a more coherent whole that flowed more smoothly and did not jar with its large leaps of logic.
As it stands, it is a moderately entertaining two hours worth of fluff that had the potential to be a lot more.
7/10
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Ambitious and messy. It has a dream B-movie cast, some very intriguing concepts and a lot of the of-kilter humour is spot on. I wish the cast members had been put to better use. Weller sleepwalks through the role with less emotion than even RoboCop and Goldblum and Lloyd have zilch to do. Only John Lithgow stands out with his over-the-top, deranged performance.
5/10
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of yours I only remember Capricorn One. It was OK in a very 70s way and I agree with you that it did not really live up to its potential.
